One final thought from me and apologies for the irritating multiple posts.
A few MN-ers upthread have pointed to the Sussex PR machine tactic of wheeling out 'friends' to 'clap back' at negative publicity by giving anonymous quotes to the media about how wonderful Meghan is, or blasting H&M's detractors.
I have little doubt that such a machine exists, especially on social media. The talking points and even phraseology are too similar. It's interesting to me because it's a tactic I would expect to see from an influencer, not an A list celeb of the level H&M are at (or should be at).
On this sort of scale it's very expensive. I have no doubt they're spending a lot of money on it. Money that would be better spent on taking some proper strategic advice on a whole ground up reset of their image and PR strategy, imho.